And Sometimes
by kitty1
Summary: JC/AL: "her kisses as black as the night, as raw as the ash from her perfect cigarettes."


"And Sometimes"  
  
Disclaimers: I can just about get away with owning my cats. But, really even then that's only when I have a can of tuna in my hands. I don't think I could tempt Maura and Noah in the same way.  
  
Email: aphrodite298@aol.com  
  
Author's notes: No, you didn't get rid of me last time. I'm here again with another product of the "page a day" challenge, this is from yesterday and today, so that's two pages for the price of one. Slow and steady wins the race. ;) Mild spoilers for "Next of Kin" but if you haven't seen it this doesn't give everything away I promise.   
  
With many, many, many thanks to Jen for all the virtual mochas. :) And to Cat for my "punctuation." ;)  
  
Summary: JC/AL: "her kisses as black as the night, as raw as the ash from her perfect cigarettes."  
  
****  
  
And sometimes, he finds her like this.  
  
Sitting on her porch, in the dead of night under the glare of sodium streetlights when she should be in his arms but isn't. He finds her, in her coat, smoking her - what was it? - her perfect cigarette, he finds her.  
  
When he awoke to find her gone the first time, he'd had a small panic that she might possibly have abandoned him in the middle of the night the way his parents used to whenever they'd go to Switzerland or Russia or France on impromptu Carter events, the maid his only witness to the fact that they'd ever lived there before or a testament to where they'd gone. But she'd left her underwear, overnight bag and a box of cigarettes, so he knew she hadn't gone far.   
  
He sits with her when he does find her, and she tells him things some times, but most often not.  
  
When she does, she punctuates everything with the glowing ember of her cigarette. Punctuates the full stops of all her run on sentences in all the wrong places, punctuates the start of her tears or the end of them, and then presses the butt against the step when she's finished, her wet eyes glowing in the dark.   
  
She usually kisses him like that when he takes her back to her room so they can sleep, her kisses ashy, bitter and dark. She doesn't like to sleep alone afterwards.  
  
When she hears the apartment door open she turns, smiling faintly when she sees it's him, even though she knew it was him before he opened the door. She moves over a little to give him room to sit next to her, which he does.  
  
"Those things will kill you," he offers mildly.  
  
She smiles again, her eyes following his, "Not soon enough."  
  
And she misses the look of hurt in his eyes.  
  
He sighs, settling into the silence with her, marred only by the inhaling and exhaling of smoke. He doesn't even mind when she blows cigarette smoke at him, because in it, he sees her.  
  
The blackness of the sky taints her skin and her eyes, making them seem deeper somehow, almost bottomless, her dark eyelashes fluttering against her cheek as she closes her eyes in sleepy thought. She looks younger then, vulnerable, and there's nothing more he wants to do than to hold her, as if that were ever a cure for anything.  
  
"You should sleep," she says, opening her eyes again. She quickly looks away from him, playing with the cigarette between her fingers. "I'm the one who can't."  
  
He shifts, staring out straight-ahead, not wanting to look at her. "You don't want me here?" he says, trying to keep his tone light.  
  
She shakes her head smiling slightly although there's no humour in her eyes. "No, I just..." she stops, and then looks up at him shrugging her shoulders back, "Why are you still here?"  
  
He inhales and shrugs lightly. She watches him for moments. They're not just talking about tonight.   
  
They don't talk about their feelings. He doesn't think they know how to, he hasn't had the practice, and he imagines that talking about them would ruin them somehow like the way the great silent film stars were ruined by sound.  
  
"I like the company," He turns to her and smiles defencelessly.  
  
Her cigarette is half ash but she doesn't notice, instead she shakes her head softly as though disagreeing with something.  
  
It's the things she doesn't say that he hears loudest.  
  
He still wonders how their relationship was like, how she was with him. If really, the ways she kisses him sometimes, desperately, as though she's just been told she's dying of cancer, the way she entwines herself around him when she sleeps, as though clinging onto the most secure thing she can find, is something she's only done with him or is just something she does.  
  
She sometimes apologises for things after this, he's never really sure what, but as she kisses him she says sorry, I'm really sorry. He doesn't say anything in response but does the only thing he knows how and kisses her back. Her kisses as black as the night, as raw as the ash from her perfect cigarettes.  
  
His voice surprises himself and she turns to look at him quickly, some of the ash falling with her movement, her own voice soft, "What?"  
  
"Why did you stay with him?"  
  
Her eyes, as black as the bottomless ocean at night, focus on his. "I don't remember," she says apologetically.   
  
She fixes her attention on flicking off more ash and taking another pull of her cigarette, not meeting his gaze.  
  
He can't help himself anymore. "Then what was it?"  
  
She thinks for a second, shaking her head again. "Loneliness. With him it was about loneliness."  
  
He chews on his bottom lip. "What is it with me? Why are you still here?"  
  
He wants her to say, "Because I need you," "because I want you," "because I've forgotten how to sleep without you." He wants her to put his insecurities out in the way he's never been able to.  
  
She shrugs again, not unkindly, a small smile in her voice, "About being lonely when I'm not with you."  
  
Her perfect cigarette had finished, and she pressed the burnt out butt against her step. He was smiling when she looked back up.   
  
He gets up first and she accepts his hand.   
  
And sometimes they both say things that surprise him, and sometimes her kisses afterwards can be like cotton candy, deep, sweet and lingering, and sometimes this is all he needs to know. 


End file.
